Saturday, February 9, 2008

Baby Blues

I need to let you in on a little secret. (Boy, I'm chock full o' little secrets this week, hm?)

I want another baby. I very badly want another baby. Very. Badly.

But I can't seem to get pregnant this time around. And that's making me very, very sad. It is, quite literally, breaking my heart.

Super Man and I have been trying for another child for almost two years now. Super Boy will be five soon, and our plan was always to have our two kids together be three to four years apart. At best, if I got pregnant tomorrow (which, believe me, isn't bloody likely, if you get my drift), they'd be five-and-a-half years apart. Not the most ideal, but hell, I'd take it in a heartbeat simply to have another baby.

My arms ache to hold another infant mine close to my chest. To smell that delicious and all-too-fleeting "baby smell." To feel the tingle of tiny baby fingers reaching and wrapping around one of your own fingers. To be the first face that baby sees when it opens its eyes, prompting it to smile with pure adoration and coo, all for me. And perhaps most of all, I ache to make my little Super Boy a big brother - his heart's greatest desire, something he talks of at least once a week.

My little Super Boy would be the world's best big brother, of that I'm sure. He is sweet, gentle, protective, smart and a natural leader. He would love nothing more than to take a baby brother or sister under his wing, to help me care for him or her, to "show him/her the ropes," to give his boundless love and affection.

When he first started saying, "When I'm a big brother..." it would melt my heart. And I assumed that Super Man and I would be able to provide that experience for Super Boy in fairly short order, having conceived him in only three months. But as the months - and years - have slipped by with nary a baby in sight, those words now stab my heart rather than melt it, and pierce my soul. I want to give this to my son, more than anything. I want to talk about "my children" and mean more than Super Boy and Super Man's daughter, who will never truly be mine, regardless of how good our relationship is or will be.

I can deal with my sadness and frustration most of the time. I can keep it bottled up tight, tucked away from public viewing, and I can swallow its bitterness and go on with my life as though nothing is wrong. When the cork pops, though, is when I believe this time I might be... and then, once again, I'm not. When the first stains of red appear, the tears well up in my eyes, the lump forms in my throat, the knife digs into my heart, and I swallow it all and force myself forward.

This is not right, it is not fair. I know that God gives us what we're meant to have in our lives, and I accept that - most of the time. This just cannot be right though. He must be making a mistake to withhold another child from me. Am I so bad a mother? Am I so overwhelmed with what I've already got on my plate and don't even know it?

Because I don't feel like I'm a bad mom, nor do I feel like I couldn't handle another baby. In fact, I've worked very hard to make my life ideal for another child to come along, given the circumstances I've had to work within. I'm a stay-at-home mom now, for one thing, brought about by Super Boy's health problems, which have resolved beautifully as his doctors and we had hoped after getting him out of daycare. I no longer have the stress of my career constantly wrapping itself around my throat and squeezing. In that aspect, I am totally serene. Yes, money is tighter that I'd like, but we're managing okay. And I will get a part-time job when Super Boy starts full-day school in the fall. A very low-key part-time job where I'm not direly needed or else the whole works stop in my absence.

Simply put, I'm ready, God and all the positive forces in the Universe. Please, please, please give me another healthy, beautiful, sweet child to love and care for. Let me be a mom once more, let Super Boy be a big brother, let us expand the love in our family by one. I beg you.

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About Me

I'm a thirty-something writer, mother-of-two/stepmother-of-one, new divorcee, daughter, stepdaughter, sister, stepsister, friend, and occasional room mom. And I was once diagnosed with "secondary infertility of unknown cause." Some days I've got it all under control... others, well, not so much.
These are my stories.